[int_19h]

Arrays are functions, by definition. They relate inputs to outputs.

[lispm]

That does not mean I want them in a programming language to be functions.

[int_19h]

I guess I just don't see a disadvantage. An array is a pure function, no side effects, so it should always be safe to treat it as one.

[lispm]

One disadvantage: you can't inline the code for such a vector reference, unless the compiler knows at compile time that this is a vector reference.

[int_19h]

But this is true for anything that's in the callee position, right? Either it can be determined (possibly via static flow analysis) that it's a particular function, in which case it is inlined; or else it is an unknown function, in which case it won't be. It would seem that statically verifying that something is a vector reference isn't really harder than doing the same for a function, all else being equal.

[lispm]

if a Common Lisp compiler sees a call to cl:aref then it can inline it, without using static flow analysis or similar...

[int_19h]

I was under the impression that CL compilers already had to do a lot of fairly complicated static analysis to achieve acceptable performance, because of dynamic typing.